Tip of the Day

iOS 7: Securing the Lock Screen

iOS 7 introduces to new convenient features that can now be accessed from the lock screen by default: The improved Notification Centre and the new Control Centre. These features give you quick and easy access to your pending notifications along with weather, calendar appointments, reminders, traffic information, as well as a new flashlight feature alongside the clock, calculator and camera apps. If you normally use a passcode to lock your iOS device, you may be concerned at the amount of information and number of features that can be accessed from here, but the good news is that you can turn almost all of it off entirely.

The Notification Center and Control Center sections in your iOS Settings app provide toggles to disable access to these features when your device is locked. Control Center provides a simple on/off toggle for disabling the feature entirely from the lock screen, while Notification Center allows you to individually restrict access to the Today View, Notifications View, or both. You can also simply disable individual sections in the Notification Center, such as the Calendar Day View, although this option will hide these sections entirely, not only when your device is locked. Note that you can’t disable the camera button in the bottom right corner, however the camera app in this mode only lets you to take new pictures, it doesn’t allow access to what’s already in your photo library.

If you’re only worried about specific notifications showing up, iOS can also hide notifications from specific apps in the lock screen Notification Centre. This is done in much the same way as it was in iOS 6: simply go into Notification Center, select an app for which you don’t want notifications appearing on your lock screen, and then scroll down and switch the Show on Lock Screen option OFF. This will hide any notifications from that app on both the main lock screen and the Notification Centre when it’s accessed from the Lock Screen; these notifications will only appear when you pull down Notification Centre after unlocking your device. Certain apps such as Messages and Mail take this one step further: the Show Preview option can be toggled off to hide the detailed text of a received message.

Comments

1

Calling Phone Numbers from the Clipboard doesn’t work in IOS 7. Help!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Peter Cobrin on September 19, 2013 at 2:20 PM (CDT)

2

The above instruction do not solve the probelm.

IN ADDITION, you also need to go through each App show in the same settings page and turn off the forced changes to your handset.

In my opinion, the mandatory showing of notifications when the handet is locked is a stupid feature - one that WILL lead to increased crime, including sexual assault against women and mintors. Very foolish to Apple to make this mandatory.

Posted by Mark on October 12, 2013 at 3:15 PM (CDT)

3

Camera Icon at the bottom right in a locked Iphone 5s when slid up, opens the camera. Putting the Iphone upside down in my pocket launched the camera and drained my battery almost completely in 2 hours and heated up the phone. Geek Squad could not disable camera icon.

Posted by Dilip on October 31, 2013 at 8:50 AM (CDT)

4

@Mark (#2): You’re correct that simply disabling Notification Centre from the lock screen will still not turn off Lock Screen notifications, but there’s nothing “forced” or “mandatory” about the feature. Users concerned with privacy can disable “Show on Lock Screen” although this needs to be done on an app-by-app basis. Then again, there are many apps for which lock screen notification would be relatively innocuous and probably don’t even need to be turned off.

Considering how few users even bother to set a passcode lock on their devices, the display of notifications on the lock screen was likely chosen as a default based on what the majority of the users would likely prefer. Users who are concerned about security and privacy can obviously change these default options for their needs.

Posted by Jesse Hollington in Toronto on November 1, 2013 at 1:30 PM (CDT)

5

@Dilip (#3): Unfortunately, it is correct that the camera button cannot be disabled on the lock screen. However, if you get into the habit of pushing the sleep/wake button before sliding the iPhone into your pocket, it’s less likely that this would be triggered inadvertently. If your sleep/wake button is to sensitive that your iPhone is coming on too easily, you may want to take it into an Apple Store and get it checked out.

Posted by Jesse Hollington in Toronto on November 1, 2013 at 1:32 PM (CDT)

6

I bought the 5s over the 5c, hoping I wouldn’t have to type in the 4 digit pin every time I opened my iphone. After awhile typing in that dang key gets annoying, so on old devices I disabled it in purpose because it was downright too annoying to type in that dang key every time. So I liked that the 5s has a thumb print now to bypass that annoying feature.

however, when new notifications come up, I find I still have to type in the 4 digit key to reply to those notifications, unless I place my thumb on the scanner and go into the app manually, which I guess I have to do its better then typing in that dang 4 digit key.

but the annoying thing is when I reboot the phone, even with thumb print enabled, I have to type in the 4 digit key every time I reboot the phone. I’m like ok, why is this thumb print scanner used for if I have to type in my 4 digit pin either way? really only saves me from having to type in the 4 digit pin every 10 seconds when you get a new message, but even with a thumb print, you still have to type in that 4 digit pin when you reboot the phone or answer an incoming notification, so its not really that useful I am finding out, unless I get multiple messages coming in constantly. Another thing is the thumb print is disabled when you turn off 4 digit pin in settings, so you have to deal with the 4 digit pin crapola if you want to use the thumb print at all. thats what I don’t like, its like an extra $100 just for 4 digit pin bypass. you can’t use the thumb print for anything else in IOS 7, it doesn’t work for itunes logins so its turned out to be not very useful as I thought it would be

Posted by Tom Coburn on November 5, 2013 at 4:59 PM (CST)

7

@Tom Coburn (#6): You actually don’t need to enter your PIN manually when responding to a lock screen notification; simply place your finger on the Touch ID sensor from the PIN code screen, and the iPhone will be unlocked in the same way as it would be from the normal lock screen. You should actually see it “enter” the PIN code for you on that screen, and then take you directly to the app.

The requirement for the PIN code after restarting the iPhone is a security measure on Apple’s part, as the PIN code is presumably considered more secure than a fingerprint in this case, since there are ways to spoof the fingerprint sensor, and this is new still relatively new technology from a consumer perspective. That said, most users don’t really need to reboot their iPhones all that often during normal use—if you’re somebody who turns your phone off entirely at night, you may want to look into features like Do Not Disturb and Airplane Mode instead of powering down completely.

Posted by Jesse Hollington in Toronto on November 6, 2013 at 8:13 AM (CST)

8

My brother and I both did the iOS7 update, both have iPhone 5.
On his message screen there is a blue bubble next to each message with the initials of the sender. How can I change my screen view so this appears on my telephone.